The investigating bodies of the West Siberian Transport Investigations Directorate of the Russia’s Investigative Committee have launched a criminal investigation into disappearance of a Mi-8 helicopter as a crime under part 3 of article 263 of the RF Penal Code (violation of safety standards for aircraft traffic).

According to preliminary reports, on 7 October 2014, a Mi-8 helicopter of TuvaAvia airlines was flying from the town of Kyzyl to cordon of Sorug in Todzhinsky District, Tuva Regpublic. The flight was chartered by OOO StroyLain (LLC) to assembly the net for hydrometeorological monitoring in the pool of Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP.

On 10 October 2014, at around 10:30 AM, the pilot notified terrain services that the helicopter was taking off from Sorug and headed to Kyzyl. However, the helicopter did not arrive at the airport on the scheduled time and failed to contact. Considering that there has been no information about the helicopter during a long period of time, and that it went missing in a remote mountainous area in autumn, there are sufficient grounds to consider that the helicopter crashed on 10 October 2014. So investigators made a decision to start the investigation in order to conduct investigative operations to find out all the circumstances of what happened with the aircraft.

Among chief versions of what happened the investigators are looking at a technical failure, crew’s error and poor weather conditions. The investigation is ongoing.